But as far as India’s media is concerned, it is fair to say that the opening Test in Ahmedabad has not been the biggest item on the sporting agenda this week.

Cricket yet to make it to India's front pages on first Test eve

First came the drooling over the arrival of Maria Sharapova in New Delhi and – more importantly - a skimpy black skirt. "The alluring presence of Sharapova left fans here touched and awed as the reigning deity of tennis landed in India for the first time" reported the Times of India with more restraint than most.

As the reigning deity of cricket here, Sachin Tendulkar might have felt a bit jealous. If only he was blonde, female, 25 and 6’ 2”, he would be really popular.

Events in the world of men’s tennis and English football also took precedence over cricket earlier this week. But to the Test series India’s attention is now turning, if not half so rapidly as the ball is expected to turn for their leading spinners, Ravi Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha.

‘Ashwin Ready With His Mystery Ball’ was the lead story in the Times of India three days before the first Test. The hand of Duncan Fletcher, once England’s coach and now India’s, was discerned in the almost complete absence of spin for England to face in the warm-up games; and for a spinner to announce on the eve of a Test series that he has a new delivery to unleash against England is another trick in the international coaching manual.

This is not the carrom ball that Ashwin flicks out of the front of his hand as a variation to his legbreak. No, this is another, completely new delivery – perhaps one that spins backwards after pitching, and dedicated to Shane Warne, the master of cricket psychology.

This latest novelty is delivered by means of his knuckles: Ashwin will reveal no more than that. "I might just use it in this series," he said.

The Free Press Journal reported that India will have a new slip line-up in this series – Ashwin and the batting star in the making, Virat Kohli, being two members of it - as will England after the retirement of Andrew Strauss.

‘Bat Big And Win’ was the headline in the Mumbai daily Mid Day the day before the Test. But the cricket could not muscle its way on to the front page. That was saved for an advertisement featuring the nation’s darling, the film star Shah Rukh Khan, and a photograph of David Cameron in – or out of – his white shirt at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet.

Plenty of domestic cricket has been going on in the Ranji Trophy, but like first-class domestic cricket throughout the world it does not receive much if any coverage except when a star plays.

And here may be a new one, the latest in the long line of Indian batting prodigies, featuring Tendulkar and Kohli among other glorious names.

A lad from Patiala called Jiwanjot Singh scored a double-century on his first-class debut for Punjab against the presentable Hyderabad attack. In his second game he has just followed up with a century against Bengal, becoming the first Indian to hit a double and a century in his first two innings.

But even this history-making by Singh was given only a couple of paragraphs in the newspapers. Sharapova’s black skirt and Cameron’s white shirt were deemed far more significant.